


A Serpent's Tooth

by Akatsuki210



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Loki's Children - Freeform, M/M, Ragnarok, Thor 2 Spoilers, frostiron fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akatsuki210/pseuds/Akatsuki210
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meeting Loki's children was supposed to be a way for Tony to grow closer to his partner and demonstrate his commitment.  It was not, repeat not, supposed to end up unleashing Ragnarok.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Serpent's Tooth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enk/gifts).



> Gift fic for Enk, as part of the 2013 FrostIron Fest, with the following prompt:
> 
> "Loki introduces Tony to his children (and it is terrifying/hilarious) and accidentally awakens Jormungandr, thus ringing in Ragnarok/the end of times."
> 
> The title is a quote from Shakespeare: "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

For most couples, the revelation that one of the partners had children from a previous relationship would be broached delicately, and any suggestion that the other partner should meet them would be made with all due seriousness.  It would perhaps be prefaced by phrases like, "I feel it's time to take our relationship to the next level," or "You're already an important part of my life, and I'd like you to be part of theirs as well."  
  
Of course, as anyone in SHIELD could tell you, Tony Stark and Loki Laufeyson were not exactly a typical couple.  And so, the momentous topic was raised in the following way:  
  
"I think you ought to meet my children."  
  
This statement was immediately followed by the sound of Tony choking on his scotch.

* * *

  
  
  
"So, explain the plan to me again?"  
  
"I'm going to use the Casket to put both of us in a state of suspended animation, like a much more sophisticated version of your cryogenics.  I will then guide our minds to the realm of the dead so that you can meet Hel."  
  
"...Nope, it doesn't sound any better than it did the first time."  
  
"Are you backing out, then?"  
  
"JARVIS, can you explain to our friend how good I am at backing out of really, really bad ideas?"  
  
"On a scale of one to ten, approximately negative thirty-two thousand, sir."  
  
"And there you have it."  Tony eased himself onto the couch, leaning back against what felt like a small mountain of pillows.  
  
"Are you ready?"  Loki looked over at him from the neighboring couch.  He was already holding the Casket of Ancient Winters, and thin tendrils of ice were snaking their way up his arms.    
  
"As ready as I'm ever gonna get, I suspect."  
  
Loki reached up a hand whose fingers were already tinted blue and opened the Casket.  
  
The light that spilled out reminded Tony of some hiking he'd done in Alaska.  The sun had reflected off the snow and made it seem as though the ground were covered in diamonds.  When Tony had lifted his sunglasses to get an untinted view of his surroundings, he'd been forced to squinch his eyes shut.  But despite the dazzling brightness of the light, there was no warmth in it.  Tony had been able to feel the cold even through his insulated parka, boots, also-insulated clothing, and the ridiculous thermal underwear Pepper had insisted he bring along.  The Casket was the same: it filled the room with a light that was utterly devoid of the warmth that usually made light so comforting.  
  
It didn't hurt, though.  That reassured Tony until he remembered that when you were freezing to death, you eventually stopped feeling cold.  You just felt really, really tired, so that even a snowdrift started to look as appealing as a featherbed.  If you were foolish enough to lie down, you would feel relieved and comfortable...and then you would die.  
  
He reminded himself that he had JARVIS watching over his vital signs.  Surely it would be able to tell the difference between freezing-to-death and almost-but-not-quite-freezing-to-death?  
  
It occurred to him to wonder whether using the Casket had caused a full transformation in Loki's appearance.  But the light that was still pouring from the Casket was so intense that he couldn't even look in the other man's direction.  Besides, the pillows were so soft, and the cold wasn't really so bad once you got used to it...

* * *

  
  
"So, did it work?  Are we all dead, or only mostly dead?"  He looked around.  "And is this really Hel's realm?  It just looks like a foggy plain with a lot of doors to me."  
  
Everything was grey.  Grey grass, grey sky, grey doors of every description.  There were simple wooden doors with peeling paint, ornate doors of hammered metal embellished with designs of leaves and flowers, open stone arches.  The doors were all around them, and the plain stretched away in every direction before fading into a thick fog.    
  
"To answer your first question, yes, it worked.  To answer your second, we are in suspended animation, or as you so crudely put it, only mostly dead.  And for your third, what did you expect?"  
  
"Well, I don't know, maybe some pearly gates or a big scale with a feather on it or something.  I mean, people come here when they die and this is all they get?  No greeting, no judgment, just a bunch of doors?  How do you even know which one you're supposed to go through?"  
  
Loki rolled his eyes.  "Luckily, the universe doesn't share your love of the melodramatic.  The doors are metaphors.  They represent crossings into other planes of existence.  As for how you know where to go...it's the subject of quite a lot of debate, actually.  There aren't exactly a multitude of people who've been through the experience and come back to report on it.  The general consensus is that you're inexorably drawn to one of the various portals, though the precise mechanism by which this works is unclear.  You'll note, however, that we aren't being pulled toward any of them, which is how I knew that the procedure worked."  
  
"And we have a set amount of time before our bodies thaw out, right?  So, let's go meet your daughter."  
  
Loki arched an eyebrow.  "You already have."  
  
"What?"  Tony spun around in a circle.  Nope, nothing that looked like an Asgardian.  Or a Jotun.  Whatever.  Just more doors and more fog.  "Is she invisible or something?  Can you only see her if you're about to die?"  
  
"I most certainly hope not, given that I'm looking at her right now.  As are you."  Loki gestured at the mist that hung heavy over the landscape, twining sinously around the doors and arches.  "Hel permeates this plane.  She's everywhere at once.  You've been quite literally walking through her for the past ten minutes."  
  
"Wait.  You mean this fog stuff _is_ your daughter?"  
  
Loki nodded.  
  
"I've been _inhaling your daughter_?"

* * *

  
  
  
"...That horse has eight legs."  
  
"Yes, it does."  
  
"Also, it's a horse."  
  
"Yes, it is."  
  
Tony stared at Loki.  
  
"Look, it was _one_ time and I was drunk, okay?"

* * *

 

  
  
Having been on both previous crusies of the Stark Industries Experimental Spacecraft for Asteroid Mining, Tony had seen the asteroid belt before.  That didn't make him any less awed by the sheer scale of the chunks of rock that floated past them, or by the mysteries that lay hidden under their craggy surfaces.  Not just the potential mineral wealth that had sold the Board of Directors on the project, but the possibility of learning more about the birth of the solar system that had given rise to everything from the Lascaux cave paintings to the Iron Man suit.  
  
Glancing over at Loki, Tony was surprised to see a faint smile on the Asgardian's face.  "What?"  
  
"You look the way I imagine I looked the first time I saw the Bifrost," he answered.  "The realization that the universe is a much _bigger_ place than you had previously thought."  
  
"You still haven't explained to me what we're doing out here."  
  
"We're meeting another of my children," Loki said.  
  
"One of your children lives in the asteroid belt?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking.  You said this craft includes a prototype for a dark matter detection device?"  
  
"Yeah, it works by detecting the gravitational distortions that dark matter creates."  
  
"Turn it on."  
  
Tony fiddled with a few knobs and dials.  One of the many screens on the walls around them lit up.  "Hey, whaddaya know, it works!  Whoa.  This whole place is full of...dark...wait."  
  
"Yes?"  There was still a smile on Loki's face, but it was significantly more mischevious than it had been a second ago.  
  
"Loki?"  
  
"Yes?" he repeated in the same maddeningly curious tone.  
  
"According to the instrumentation, there's a ring of dark matter colocalized with the asteriod belt.  It has an exceptionally regular boundary, conforming largely to the elliptical orbit of the various bodies within the belt.  And being that it fills the same space as the belt, it's millions of miles in diameter.  This is...Loki, this in an unprecedented discovery!  Well, for human science anyway," he amended.  "That look you're giving me tells me you've known this was here all along."  
  
"Seeing as how I made it, yes, I did.  Tony Stark, say hello to Jormungandr."  
  
All of the Avengers and almost every SHIELD agent he'd ever met had, at one time or another, commented on Tony's seemingly pathological inability to stop talking for more than five seconds at a time.  But not only had the Norse god's matter-of-fact statement rendered him speechless, it wasn't the first time, or even the tenth, that had happened.  That probably deserved some kind of award, or possibly an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, Tony reflected.  
  
"You...made a ring of dark matter circling half the Solar System?  How?  No, scratch that, _why_?"  
  
"As an experiment," Loki said cheerfully.  "It is the result of a confluence between two lines of theoretical research: the manipulation of non-conventional forms of matter and energy, and the creation of artificial life-forms."  
  
"Are you saying that this dark matter ring is _alive_?"  
  
"Jormungandr is very much alive, though he's been asleep for quite some time now.  Which is lucky for you; were he awake, these asteroids would be far less stable in position."  
  
A slight tremor went through the ship at that moment, and Tony turned away from Loki's infuriating smirk to scrutinize the instrumentation.  "The dark matter ring--er, I mean Jormungandr, I guess--is moving.  That vibration we just felt was a gravitational distortion."  
  
"What?  Why would that be happening?"  
  
"I don't know.  Nothing we've done has actually affected it--him--whatever--in any way; it's all been just passive scans.  Do you know what kind of perceptual abilities Jormungandr has?  Would he recognize the approach of a space vessel even in his sleep?"  
  
"He shouldn't, not unless that sleep is much lighter than it was designed to be.  Then again..."  
  
Another wave rocked the ship, a stronger one this time.  "Then again what?"  
  
"Circumstances haven't exactly been normal lately.  The Conjunction, the...regrettable incident...with the Chitauri, the reappearance of the Phoenix Force you told me about, those all had effects that resonated beyond Midgard.  And those were on a scale that might have penetrated to the deep levels of the subconscious that Jormungandr still has access to while asleep.  It may be that one or all of those events began the process of waking him up."  
  
"And by showing up on his doorstep with his creator and the arc reactor powering this ship, we've finished it?  Great.  So what do we do now?"  
  
Loki didn't answer right away, and Tony was shocked to see a look of naked fear on his face.  To most people, Loki seemed unflappable, greeting any setback or unexpected catastrophe with either blithe unconcern or blistering sarcasm.  Tony was pretty sure that he and Thor, and maybe Frigga when she was alive, were the only ones who could, on a regular basis, see that mask for what it was.  Loki could be uncertain, could be frightened, he just refused to show it.  But now he wasn't making even a token attempt to hide the fact that he was _absolutely fucking terrified_.  
  
"Loki?  Talk to me, buddy.  What's going on?  How do we put your not-so-little bundle of joy back to sleep?"  
  
Loki didn't look at him.  His eyes were fixed on a display screen showing the ever-escalating gravitational anomalies.  The apparatus had made a rough map of Jormungandr and was tracking its movements in real time.  There was a crack appearing in the ring at a point not too distant from them.  As Loki and Tony watched the screen, the crack grew wider, splitting the ring completely.  Now it wasn't so much a ring as a sinuous, snakelike shape curled around the asteroid belt.  The broken ends of the ring were tapering, so that they looked like the head and tail of a gigantic serpent.  
  
Finally, Loki answered Tony's question.  "I'm not entirely sure we can.  Jormungandr's waking has been prophecied, and it's only the beginning.  The beginning of the end, so to speak."  
  
"The end of what?"  
  
"The world."

* * *

What Tony had already termed the "spacequakes" were getting more violent, forcing them to exit the asteroid belt entirely.  Meanwhile, Tony was trying to wrap his head around what Loki had just said.  "Okay, I get that this is bad.  Jormungandr isn't a morning person; he might fling asteroids around and so on.  But the _end_ of Midgard?"  
  
"Not just Midgard.  All of the Nine Realms, all of existence.  The stars will go out, the fires of Surtur will go cold, the ice of Jotunheim will melt."  Loki's hands were braced on either side of the control panel, his shoulders hunched.  On the screen, Jormungandr thrashed, and chunks of rock spun out into space as it flexed and twisted.    
  
"Sir?"  
  
Tony jumped at the sound of JARVIS's voice.  The artificial intelligence had been silent for most of the journey.  It often was, when Loki was present.  Tony wasn't sure if that was JARVIS's way of trying to give them privacy, or if it still didn't fully trust the Asgardian.  "What is it?"  
  
"The disturbances in the local fabric of space-time caused by Jormungandr's awakening have dislodged several asteroids.  One appears to be heading for Earth."  
  
"Projected location and effects of impact?"  
  
"Assuming no changes in speed or course, the asteroid will impact the Earth in southwestern Mongolia.  There are no major cities in the region, but there are various towns and villages.  In addition, the impact will raise a cloud of dust and debris that could block a significant portion of the sunlight that normally reaches Earth's surface, leading to a global drop in temperatures similar to a nuclear winter."  
  
"That's part of the prophecy of Ragnarok, isn't it?" Tony asked, turning to Loki.  "An exceptionally long and cold winter?"  
  
"Fimbulwinter.  Three years of winter, unbroken by the other three seasons.  It will plunge Midgard into anarchy, and it's said that only two of all the human race will survive."  
  
"But this could be averted if that asteroid doesn't strike Earth?"  
  
"In principle, yes, but Fimbulwinter is only part of Ragnarok.  The rest--"  
  
"We'll deal with the rest after we've neutralized the immediate threat." Tony spun on his heel and headed for the ship's living quarters.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"Winter is coming and I'm a Stark, where do you think I'm going?  JARVIS?"  
  
"Yes, sir?"  
  
"Suit me up."

* * *

  
  
  
The control center of the helicarrier was abuzz with activity when one of the junior agents turned to Fury and said, "Director, Tony Stark is knocking on the door."  
  
"We're forty thousand feet up, how can he--never mind.  Let him in."  
  
Tony clanked onto the bridge clad in his Iron Man suit.  "What's the situation?"  
  
"The asteroid is about to enter the upper atmosphere.  We're coordinating with the X-Men to deal with it.  Cyclops is going to use his lasers to cut the asteroid into smaller chunks, so that any impacts won't cause as much destruction.  Dr. Grey will try to nudge the trajectories of these smaller pieces toward regions where they won't cause too many problems or, if possible, away from Earth entirely."  
  
"Sir!" Agent Hill called out.  "We've got an asteroid fragment headed straight for Los Angeles."  
  
"What about Dr. Grey?"  
  
"She's dealing with a couple on their way toward London and Prague."  
  
"Then I'll get this one."  
  
"Wait, don't you want data on--"  Agent Hill stood up, but Tony was already gone.

* * *

  
  
  
Tony streaked through the thick clouds, using the suit's helmet display to guide his course.  "Is that it?" he asked when he saw a dark shadow emerging ahead of him.  
  
"That is the asteroid fragment," JARVIS confirmed.  
  
"Okay, I'm gonna need all the power you can give me."  
  
The surface of the fragment was pocked and craggy, except for one perfectly smooth surface that showed where Cyclops's laser had cleaved it off from the larger mass.  The whole thing glowed a dull red, like metal that had just been heated in a forge.  _The temperature stabilizers are gonna have fun with this one._  
  
Tony maneuvered himself alongside the rock as it plummeted through the atmosphere and laid his hands against it.  "Now!"  JARVIS obliged, and the excess energy spilling from Tony's boots flared brighter.   
  
Trying to push it straight back would take too much energy, even for Tony's arc reactor, so his goal was to guide the giant rock off-course.  With luck, it would pass through the sky over Earth and continue on its way through the solar system.  
  
Even with this less energy-intensive strategy, smoke was rising from under Tony's hands where they pressed against the surface, and the suit was emitting an ominous hum.  
  
But slowly, ever so slowly, the fragment was starting to move.  Tony's display showed him a green line representing its current trajectory, and a red one symbolizing the minimum deviation from that course that would keep it from making impact.  As Tony poured more power into his rockets, the green line inched toward the red one.  
  
"Come on, come on," he muttered under his breath as the temperature stabilizers began to whine in protest.  Even through the suit, he was starting to feel the heat of the asteroid, and the vibrations were making his teeth rattle.  
  
"Sir, the suit is dangerously close to overheating," JARVIS warned.  
  
"Yeah, I know it is.  I just need to push it a few...more...degrees...off-course."  The suit beeped wildly--not the "something is going horribly wrong" beep that Tony was all too familiar with, but the "goal achieved!" beep.  The green line now overlaid the red one, and the merged line was blinking.  "We did it!  JARVIS, we did it!"  
  
"Yes, sir.  I believe 'whoo-hoo' is the appropriate exclamation?"

* * *

  
  
  
  
The Avengers, plus Loki, sat around a table on the helicarrier.  Nick Fury was striding around the table, so that they all had to keep turning in their seats to watch him.  Tony thought it was very annoying.  
  
"Luckily, the asteroid that Cyclops, Dr. Grey, and Tony dealt with was the only one that came our way.  Less luckily, now we have a bigger problem."  Fury stabbed a control on the table, and a holographic image sprung up above the table.    
  
"This," Bruce explained, "is a diagram of the gravitational distortions that are the only way we have of detecting the presence of dark matter.  As you can see, the wave of distortions, which in this case represents Jormungandr, has left the asteroid belt and is heading toward us."  
  
"So, what I'm hearing is that Daddy Dearest over here knocked his kid out for like a million years, and said kid has now woken up and wants to discuss his feelings of neglect with his father."  
  
"Thank you, Clint, for that succinct summary," Tony retorted.  "Now, if anyone has any suggestions on how to actually _deal_ with it..."  
  
"Well, as your colleague has so eloquently pointed out, Jormungandr seems to be pursuing me.  If that's so, I would suggest that we choose an isolated location where I may wait for him."  
  
"Well, SHIELD does have a base in Antarctica, right?" Tony asked.  "But more to the point, what are you going to _do_ when Jormungandr gets there?  Have a heart-to-heart with him?"  
  
Loki pushed himself out of the chair so quickly that Natasha's hand instinctively twitched toward one of the weapons she always carried.  "No, Tony, I don't expect to be able to have a heart-to-heart with him.  I expect to kill him."  Turning his back on them, Loki strode through the closed door.  
  
"Aw, hell."  Tony jogged after the god of mischief, ignoring the bewildered looks of the SHIELD agents who hastily got out of his way.  "Loki!  Loki!"  He grabbed Loki's arm and spun him around.  "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't think that..."  
  
"That what?"  The acid in Loki's tone would have made most men recoil.    
  
"I didn't know you thought about Jormungandr as family.  I didn't think you might care about him."  
  
"Because you cannot see him directly?  Because if you could, he would look like a giant snake and not a humanoid?  Have you forgotten that the form I wear is a glamour?  Would you still think me worthy of being cared about if you saw my true appearance?"  
  
"No!  I mean, yes, I would think you were worthy of being cared about, the 'no' was that I didn't mean it that way..."  Tony trailed off.  "Have I mentioned I'm really bad with feelings?"  
  
The corners of Loki's mouth quirked upward a tiny bit.  "Almost as bad as I am."  He sighed.  "I never intended for Jormungandr to be sentient.  He wasn't like Hel.  I simply wanted to see whether dark matter, like conventional matter, could give rise to life.  I expected to produce bacteria, maybe a plant.  And from the moment he was born, Jormungandr was angry.  And in his rage, he was a danger to all.  But whatever flaws Odin may have--and believe me, I can go on for _hours_ about his flaws--he simply could not bring himself to ask me to kill a life-form I had created.  So he cast a great spell to make Jormungandr sleep until the end of the world."  
  
"Did you ever ask Jormungandr _why_ he's so angry?"  Maybe if they could talk to Jormungandr, find out what he wanted...  
  
"As a matter of fact, I did."  Loki graced Tony with another of his mirthless smiles.  "He is angry about being alive.  About being alone.  About being a monster."  
  
"Well, that doesn't sound familiar at all."  Tony and Loki both spun around at the voice coming from behind them.  Bruce stood there, fidgeting uncomfortably with a pencil.  "Look, Loki, you don't have to be there."  
  
"No, I do.  I at least owe him that."

* * *

  
  
  
Thor stuck almost as close to Loki as Tony did when they assembled at the SHIELD base in Antarctica.  This surprised absolutely no one.  
  
Against the blackness of space, Jormungandr had been nearly invisible.  Against the pearly-white, overcast sky, it could be seen as a shadow blocking their view of what lay behind him.    
  
Thor was the first to act, raising Mjolnir high.  Lightning crackled around it, then sprang in an arc toward the advancing creature.  The air around them vibrated as Jormungandr screamed.  Thor sprinted across the ice and leapt up to meet the enraged serpent.  
  
Tony's heads-up display showed him more of Jormungandr than the others could see.  Here on Earth, he was even more impressed by its vastness than he'd been in space.  It was, really, only Jormungandr's head that they were fighting: most of its bulk stretched up through the atmosphere.  Taking flight, Tony fired his uni-beam, aiming to time his hits in conjunction with Thor's strikes.  
  
Down on the ground, Hawkeye nocked an arrow to his bow.  It soared through the air, embedding itself in the murky figure that thrashed above them.    
  
"That's all it does?" Natasha asked.  "Clint, against something that big..."  
  
Hawkeye shook his head.  "I'm going to switch over to my explosive arrows.  That one's basically just a lightning rod, to draw Thor's lightning to the target."  
  
For her part, Natasha drew two pistols loaded with rounds that could pierce inch-thick metal walls.  
  
Loki flung a handful of small throwing knives.  At first, it seemed like they would miss the twisting monster, but they curved back through the air to hit their target.  Natasha raised an eyebrow; those knives were even smaller and less effective-looking than Hawkeye's arrow.  But frost spread out from each point of impact, coating Jormungandr's surface.  
  
From his perch in the sky, Tony looked down at Loki as the Asgardian raised a lance of ice to his shoulder and threw. He thought about the pride he felt when JARVIS successfully completed a difficult task, the reassurance of having that calm voice speaking in his ear when he was inside the suit, the exasperation when JARVIS failed to grasp some nuance of human emotion.  _What would I do if JARVIS ever became dangerous?  Would I be able to do what Loki's doing now?_  
  
"Whoa!"  Tony spun in midair to avoid Steve's shield as it went whizzing past.    
  
"Jormungandr is choosing to ignore our attacks!" Thor called out.  
  
Refocusing on his display, Tony saw that Thor was right.  Jormungandr had stopped trying to lash out at them.  Instead, it was driving like a falcon, making a beeline for the team on the ground.  
  
Tony flipped himself upside down and pushed his rockets to their maximum capacity.  From the corner of his eye, he could see Thor matching him, a red-and-gold streak that sparked with electricity.  
  
Natasha and Clint were backing away, though still firing their respective weapons.  Bruce was turning a distinct shade of green as he prepared for melee combat.  Loki's hands were surrounded by energy so bright that Tony couldn't look at them.  His gaze was fixed upward, as though locking eyes with the creation that he was now trying to destroy.  
  
"Thor!" Tony said into the comm system.  "We can't let Loki be the one to actually kill him.  We have to do it first!"  
  
"I know this, Man of Iron!"  The smell of ozone and burning electronics filled the air as both men pushed themselves to the limits of their speed, desperate to reach the ground before Jormungandr did.  
  
Loki raised his glowing hands above his head.  Tony knew that he was mere seconds from unleashing a blast of magic that would destroy his child.  "Turn all the safeties off, JARVIS!"  
  
"Sir--"  
  
" _Do it!_ "  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Tony hissed as some component or other gave way, zapping him with a mild electric shock.  He could smell hot metal now, and the display wavered for a moment before conking out entirely.  The face-shield went up, and he squinted his eyes against the bitter wind.  He could just barely make out a green shape before him, alight with arcane fire, but that was all he needed.  He careened into Loki like a linebacker making a tackle, and the blast of magic shot wide across the ice.    
  
Tony dimly registered that Loki was yelling something at him.  He assumed it was more of that stuff about how he was too reckless that he ignored as a matter of principle, but then Loki ripped his helmet off and punched him in the face.  
  
"What--"  
  
"You _fool_!  Do you realize, do you have any idea, what you've done, you _complete fucking imbecile_!"  
  
"Loki, I couldn't let you--"  
  
"Thor must not be the one to kill Jormungandr!  He will die if he does!  I can't charge up another blast in time, and you've broken your stupid toy suit, and none of the others have the power!  You've sealed his fate!"  He drew his fist back for another blow, but a bellow from behind them distracted him.  
  
Tony propped himself up on his elbows to see Thor standing between two prongs of gathering shadow.  _Jormungandr's jaws._   His friend stood tall, back straight, Mjolnir held out in front of him.  Tony and Loki both shouted a warning, but it was no good.  Jormungandr's fangs closed on Thor just as he threw Mjolnir, shining like a beacon, down its gullet.    
  
There was no deafening explosion.  Jormungandr simply dissipated, molecules of dark matter going their own separate ways once more.  Mjolnir returned to Thor's hand, and he turned to face them.  
  
"THOR HURT!" Hulk exclaimed.  Indeed, Thor's armor was cracked and bent, and blood leaked out from the broken places.    
  
"Do not worry, friends, I am fine," Thor said, but they could all hear the strain in his voice.  He staggered toward them, his right arm hanging limply though he still kept a firm grip on Mjolnir.    
  
Then Thor stumbled, and Tony and Loki rushed forward as one to catch him.  He wrapped one arm around each of their shoulders.  "Alright, buddy, we got you," Tony said.  Tony wasn't sure where Thor was trying to go, now that he and Loki were beside him, but he seemed to want to walk, so they kept supporting him.  They were the ones to feel Thor slump, to see his head loll forward, to hear the thump as Mjolnir slipped from his fingers and hit the ground.  
  
Loki and Tony gently lowered Thor to the ground.  "Hey," Tony said, "hey, don't quit on us now.  C'mon, we're gonna get you back on the helicarrier and you'll be just fine, okay?"  
  
"I _am_ fine, son of Stark," Thor whispered.  "My friends are safe, Midgard is safe, and my brother is..."  
  
"Stop talking like that!"  Loki grabbed Thor's chin and made his brother look in his eyes.  "Stop talking like you've given up!  You have never given up, not once in your life, not even when you should have, and I am _not_ going to let you start now!"  
  
"My brother...I am glad.  I am glad you have someone who loves you, as I have Jane.  I am glad that you have been freed from your madness.  I am...glad..."  
  
The ground began to rumble even as Thor's eyes closed.  The other Avengers were backing away, hesitantly at first, then more urgently as the ice buckled and cold poured off Loki's skin in waves.  They called out to Tony, beckoning him toward them, but he stayed sitting on the ground beside Thor's body, holding Loki against his chest.  He didn't care about the razor-edged snowflakes that slashed his face or the frigid air that seared his lungs with every breath.  He just sat and stared at the footprints in the snow marking the nine steps Thor had taken, three alone and six with his friend and his brother by his side.

* * *

  
  
  
The Avengers sat side-by-side at the long wooden table, poking glumly at the food on their plates.  Everyone else had long since either left the hall or passed out.    
  
The funeral had been as grand as one would expect for a prince of Asgard.  Thor had been laid to rest on a great wooden ship, with Mjolnir by his side and the broken weapons of Chitauri and dark elves piled under his feet.  Loki had been the first to set the ship alight with a jet of fire that sprang from his upraised hand.  Sif, the Warriors Three, and Hawkeye had followed suit.  Throughout the ceremony, Steve had stood with his fingertips to his temple in salute.    
  
Odin had spoken of Thor's valor, the countless threats to Asgard and Midgard that he'd defeated.  "But more importantly than being a great warrior, more importantly than being a prince, he was my son."  Both he and Loki had disappeared after the funeral, electing not to join the others at the feast-hall, where Sif and the Warriors Three regaled the gathered mourners with tales of Thor's exploits.  
  
Tony stood, excused himself with a mumble, and walked out onto the terrace.  It was a clear night, and stars twinkled above the glittering towers of Asgard.  It would have been a beautiful sight, if Tony had been capable of appreciating beauty at the moment.  
  
"Hey."  Tony turned around to see Bruce standing in the doorway.  
  
"Hey."  
  
"So, uh, I was doing some research while you guys were at the funeral."  Although he'd come to the feast afterward, Bruce hadn't attended the ceremony itself.  He'd been worried that the grief and anger he felt at Thor's death might spill over and, as he'd put it, "The last thing the Asgardians need in their time of sorrow is to have the Hulk go rampaging through their capital city."  
  
"Research?  You mean about the whole 'stopping Ragnarok' thing?"  
  
"Yeah.  And I found something that might actually be able to help."  
  
That managed to penetrate the cloud of depression-induced apathy around Tony's mind.  "What is it?"  
  
"Well, it turns out that there are these six incredibly powerful artifacts called the Infinity Gems.  Each one grants the holder absolute power over some aspect of the universe--time, space, whatever.  There's one called the Reality Gem, which as far as I can tell, is basically Aladdin's lamp."  
  
"...It grants wishes?"  
  
"Pretty much.  _Any_ wish.  Even something as powerful as reversing Ragnarok."  
  
Tony stood looking at the stars for a few moments more, then he spun on his heel.  "Well, what are we waiting for, then?"  
  
Loki was sitting on a window-seat in an obscure corner of the palace.  "Loki!  Bruce thinks he knows of a way we can prevent Ragnarok from occurring!"  
  
Loki was idly tracing patterns of ice on the window, and he didn't so much as glance at the Avengers.  "So?"  
  
"So?  So we can prevent the apocalypse!  We can save everyone in Midgard and Asgard and, well, everywhere."  
  
Loki just shrugged, the cloth and leather of his outfit crinkling with the movement.  
  
Clint folded his arms.  "Did we mention that 'everyone' includes you?  I mean, you could at least show a little enthusiasm."  
  
Loki shrugged again.  "What does it matter?"  
  
"Um, because it means you _don't die_?"  
  
Finally, Loki rolled his head toward them.  "My dear Hawkeye, I am well aware of the personal consequences should Ragnarok come about.  And believe me, if I actually cared about them in the slightest, I would be doing everything in my power to stop it.  But, as you can see, I don't, so please, for once in your life, do something wise and leave me alone."  
  
Hawkeye stepped forward, clearly about to make some angry retort, but Tony put up a hand to silence him.  "Loki, the method we're thinking of won't just stop Ragnarok.  It will allow us to bring Thor back."  
  
"...What did you say?"  Loki's voice was a whisper, like an icy wind whistling through cracks in a wall at night.    
  
"I said, we can bring Thor back to life."  
  
There was a long pause, then Loki sprang to his feet.  "Right!  Let's get started!"  He strode off down the hall, leaving the Avengers in his wake.

* * *

  
  
  
In the great library of Asgard, Tony watched Loki and Bruce poring over ancient texts that spoke of the Infinity Gems, seeking the location of the famed Reality Gem.  "Tony, could you bring me the third volume of Bragi's kennings?"  
  
"Uh, Bragi, right."  Tony hurried off into the stacks, and then realized he had no idea how they were organized.  "Now where the hell do I find that?"  
  
"Tony."  Tony turned to see that Clint had followed him.    
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Look, I know we've got bigger fish to fry, but...does it not bother you at all that Loki was perfectly willing to just let Ragnarok happen after Thor died?  I mean, Ragnarok wouldn't just be his death, it would be _yours_ too, and that didn't seem to mean anything to him."  
  
Between the despair of losing Thor and the elation of finding out that they could get him back, Tony felt emotionally wrung out.  Despite that, he was touched by Hawkeye's concern.    
  
After Loki's apparent death on Svartalheim, Thor had been inconsolable.  Most of the other Avengers and SHIELD agents Tony knew had been of the opinion that the world was a safer place without the trickster-god in it (though of course none of them were stupid enough to say so in front of Thor).  But Tony had felt differently.  Maybe it was because Loki was the most challenging villain he'd ever fought.  Maybe it was because no one else could match him when it came to verbal barbs.  Maybe he had gotten some inkling that under the haughty facade he put up, Loki was just as damaged as he was.  Regardless, he had actually missed the guy.  
  
And then Loki had come back.  
  
He had spun a story about some powerful spell he had cast upon himself that would whisk him away to one of his many secret hideouts in the event that he should be gravely injured, leaving behind a duplicate that would fool his enemy into believing he was dead.  The wounds he'd suffered had been grievous, and it had taken him a long time to recover--besides which, he had wanted to be sure that Malekith was well and truly gone before he returned.  
  
The Avengers had treated this with the skepticism they showed for anything that came out of Loki's mouth...which in Thor's case meant no skepticism whatsoever.  But to their surprise, Odin had agreed with his son.  He had suspected that Loki wasn't truly dead, but had said nothing for fear of getting Thor's hopes up in case he was wrong.  (Tony had taken a certain amount of amusement from the way Odin's jaw worked as he admitted that it was possible for him to be wrong about something.  It was probably an event unprecedented in the millennia-long history of Asgard.)  
  
Thor had, of course, spent the intervening months telling anyone and everyone he encountered about how Loki had sacrificed his life for him, and indeed for them all.  The result was that, when Loki gradually seemed to become less dishonest, manipulative, and generally annoying, people were less dubious about it than they otherwise might have been.  Hawkeye had been the exception, of course, for which Tony couldn't really blame him.  If someone had mind-controlled _him_ into attacking his own comrades, he wouldn't let go of the resultant grudge easily either.  When Tony had developed first a friendship, and then more than a friendship, with Loki, Clint had been the most vocal objector.  (The sound of Nick Fury's teeth grinding could probably be heard from several continents away, but Tony didn't think that teeth-grinding really counted as "vocal.")  His righteous indignation now didn't exactly come as a surprise.  
  
"Look, Clint, I know that you and Loki are never going to be bosom friends.  And if you tell anyone I said what I'm about to say, I will categorically deny it and then replace all your arrows with Nerf projectiles, but...yes, sometimes I do wonder whether he cares about Thor more than about me.  But, first of all, Thor is my friend and I'm not going to let my jealousy screw up that friendship.  Second, the reason Loki's so attached to Thor is because of all the family issues he has.  Now, trust me when I say that I know something about family issues.  Hell, I have more baggage than most airports lose in a year.  Loki's willing to put up with what Pepper affectionately refers to as my 'million and one neuroses,' so I am willing to put up with his admittedly somewhat creepy attachment to his brother.  Now can we please table this discussion for a time when the fate of the entire universe isn't at stake?"  
  
Hawkeye just watched him for a few seconds, then gave him a brisk nod.  "Fair enough.  Now, what book did they send you looking for?  Somebody's third something-or-other?"

* * *

  
  
  
After the frigid climate of Antarctica, Tony thought he would have been glad to go somewhere warm.  But on this vast, open plain, there was nowhere to hide from the sun, and even with the suit's built-in air-conditioning systems, he was sweltering.  
  
"It's psychological," Bruce informed him.  "You think you should feel hot, so you do."  
  
"Yeah, but why is it just me?  Steve's in spandex, and Natasha's in _black_ spandex."  
  
"I guess we're just cooler than you," Natasha suggested.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Are we sure the Reality Gem's not someplace more pleasant, like, I don't know, the seventh circle of Hell or something?"  
  
"Well, according to that volume you found in the Asgardian library, the Reality Gem was last used by a human, back around 2000 BC.  Midas, King of Phrygia."  
  
"And we all know how _that_ turned out," Steve put in.  
  
"The Asgardians think the Gem is likely to be in Midas's palace, which as you might expect, is in Phrygia.  Also known as modern-day Turkey.  So here we are."  
  
"The coordinates referenced in the third volume of Bragi's kennings are just ahead, sir," JARVIS informed him.  
  
"There!" Steve exclaimed, pointing to what at first appeared to be just another rock formation.  A closer look showed the remnants of walls hewn from sandstone and cracked, leaning pillars.    
  
"You know, given the legend, I would have expected more gold," Natasha complained.  
  
"Well, anything obvious would have been stolen by looters long ago," Tony pointed out.  
  
"But then how do we know the Reality Gem is even still here?"  
  
"Because according to Bragi, the god Pan--presumably some sort of ancient superpowered being--crafted powerful seals to protect it after the whole debacle with the golden touch.  It still belonged to Midas, but he vowed never to use it again, and furthermore to keep it safe from any other mortals who would use it foolishly."  
  
"Okay, so how is it guarded?" Hawkeye asked.  
  
"The simplest method would be an illusion, to make would-be thieves believe there's nothing of value here at all," Loki suggested.  "In which case, all that is needed is a spell of revealing."  He raised a hand and trailed his fingers through the air, as if brushing aside a delicate veil.  A cool breeze swept over the group, much to Tony's relief, and the decrepit ruins around them shimmered with silvery light that faded to reveal--  
  
"Whoa," Bruce said.  
  
A structure like a gazebo stood in the middle of the cracked floor, but unlike everything else around them, it wasn't made of stone.  Gold shone like a torch, reflecting back the brilliant sunlight.    
  
"How kind of you to find the entrance for us," a deep voice said.  The Avengers and Loki whirled around to see an imposing man standing before them.  He was clad in a green cloak and shining metal armor, and a mask concealed his face.  
  
"It's Doom!"  Natasha drew her pistol and took aim.  Before she could fire, a scintillating beam of red light slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.  On the opposite side of the plaza from Doctor Doom, another assailant appeared.  Unlike Doom, he didn't materialize all at once, but instead seemed to slowly coalesce from the merciless sunlight.  
  
"Dr. Arthur Parks, better known as The Living Laser, at your service," their new opponent said.  
  
Loki began to trace the lines of a shielding spell, but a third adversary stepped from behind one of the pillars and struck Loki a glancing blow upside his head.  There was no visible damage done to the Asgardian, but in the next few seconds, his eyes narrowed and he turned to the Avengers with a look of murderous animosity on his face.  
  
"What have you done to him?" Tony demanded.  
  
"By making physical contact, Electro was able to introduce a precise electrical current, stimulating certain pathways in your ally's brain," Doom crowed.  "Did you think that Loki had truly left his sordid past behind and become a hero?  No, the old Loki is still there, lurking beneath the surface, biding his time, and Electro has woken him up."  
  
These words were puncutated by a bolt of lightning that coursed down from the sky and split, hitting all of the Avengers at once.  The flash momentarily overwhelmed the suit's cameras, filling Tony's viewscreen with an unbroken white field.  "Everyone okay?"  
  
There was a chorus of "yes's" and one "HULK NOT HURT!"  Natasha and Clint had been knocked to the ground but were now getting back to their feet, while Steve had been able to absorb most of the blast with his shield.    
  
"A bit unnerving to have the thunderbolts working against you, isn't it?" Loki taunted.  Power flared around his hands, and he unleashed a blue-white bolt that forced Clint to do a tuck-and-roll, coming up behind one of the partly-demolished walls.  
  
Meanwhile, The Living Laser released a beam of red light at Captain America.  His trusty shield deflected the laser, and it impacted the golden dome instead, which rung like a gong.  Hulk barreled toward him from another direction, but as his huge hands reached out to grab his adversary, the other man disappeared.  "WHERE LASER GO?"  
  
"Sir," JARVIS put in, "The Living Laser dissipated into photons as the Hulk approached him.  It is my hypothesis that he is able to materialize and dematerialize at will.  He may also be able to manipulate light to create an invisibility effect, which would explain why we did not see our opponents until they attacked."  
  
Doom was getting into the act now, firing darts from the gauntlets of his armor.  Tony aimed his repulsors, but was suddenly convulsed by an electrical current flowing through his armor.  He straightened up to see Electro readying another charge.  "Oh no, you don't!"  He fired his repulsors, knocking Electro across the plaza.  
  
From the corner of his eye, he saw another figure materializing.  _Laser!_   "Tony, get down!"  He dropped to the ground as Natasha fired, forcing The Living Laser to dematerialize once more to avoid being shot.  
  
Nodding his thanks, Tony turned his attention back to Loki, who was advancing toward him with a spear of ice in his hands.  "Loki, c'mon, snap out of it!  It's me, Tony Stark!  You remember me, right?"  
  
Loki sneered.  "Of course I remember you, striding into battle alongside Thor, the _true_ son of Odin.  And why not?  He was everything you wished you could be--the golden boy, the heir apparent to his father's throne, the one everyone fell all over themselves to praise.  You never got a chance to have any of that, did you?"  
  
Tony stood his ground.  "Remember our first date?  Well, I guess it wasn't really a date, since we just stayed in Stark Tower, but you know what I mean.  We ordered in pizza and watched comedy movies, and then Thor came in right in the middle of it.  And you changed into your female form because you didn't want him to recognize you, but he'd learned about your alternate appearance from Heimdall, and he went all protective-big-brother mode and hollered, 'Son of Stark, what are your intentions toward my brother?' loud enough for everyone in the Tower to hear."  
  
Loki seemed immune to the happy memories.  "What was it like, finding out that your parents weren't really your parents?  What was it like, always chasing your father's shadow, having his voice whispering in your ear that you weren't good enough, would never be good enough?  That voice never went away, did it, even after he died?  I wonder, is that why you put on that ridiculous playboy act?  All the private jets and Lamborghinis, the women and the booze and the publicity stunts, they're all just a way of saying, 'Look at me, Daddy!  Look how _successful_ I am!'"    
  
Loki emphasized his words with a vicious swipe of his spear.  Tony dodged it, but he could feel the cold radiating from the weapon.  "Do you know _why_ I asked you out on that first date?  It was after that battle with Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants.  In retrospect, trying to fight Magneto while encased in a metal suit may not have been the most brilliant idea I've ever had.  When he crushed the thing like a tin can while I was still in it, do you know whose face came to mind?  Not Steve's or Clint's or Natasha's or Thor's.  Not even Rhodey's or Pepper's.  Yours, Loki.  The person I would have most regretted not having a chance to say goodbye to, the person I really wished could be there to look me in the eyes and say something comforting before I died...was you.  And even though, as previously mentioned, I'm really bad with feelings, I knew what that meant.  It meant--"  
  
"Stop!"  Loki slammed the base of the spear into Tony's chest, and he staggered back as part of the chestplate buckled.  
  
"It meant that I--"  
  
"I said _stop_!"  Another swing, to the shoulder this time, drove Tony to his knees.  
  
"It meant that I love you!"  
  
Loki raised the spear above his head and drove it down.  Steve and Natasha both sprinted toward them, while Clint cursed and drew another arrow from his quiver.    
  
The spear stopped when its tip was a bare inch from the top of Tony's helmet.  Tony looked up to see Loki gazing down at him as if waking from a terrible nightmare.  "So," he said, "you wanna go beat up Doom, M.D. now?"  
  
"You know, I really think I do."  
  
A shimmer that wasn't sunlight reflecting off the dome alerted Tony to the reappearance of The Living Laser.  He was about to shout a warning when Steve called, "I've got him!" and lunged into the path of the beam (blue this time) that The Living Laser had fired.    
  
"What are you doing?" Tony yelled, but a column of numbers on his headset display told him that.  Steve had angled his shield perfectly so that the beam of light hit one of the blue sections, which promptly reflected it.  The laser returned along its course and slammed right into The Living Laser.  It didn't do anything more than knock him back...right into one of Hawkeye's sedative-coated arrows.  
  
"Okay guys, one down, two to go!"  
  
Electro had recovered from Tony's repulsor blast and was rejoining the fray, trying to bring down the Hulk (who was making a beeline for Doom) with his lightning bolts.  The Hulk had durability to spare, but Tony could see that the electric blasts were calibrated to make his muscles seize, preventing him from reaching his target or fighting back.  "Hey!" he called.  "Let's see how _you_ like it!"    
  
"An interesting strategy, sir," opined JARVIS, who clearly understood what Tony had in mind.  A green bar on the left-hand side of the headset display spurted upward as the suit's EMP generator charged.  The pulse, when it came, made all the hair on Tony's body stand on end, and even Loki looked a bit disconcerted.  The display went black for a moment--the major disadvantage of the EMP was that it temporarily depowered the suit as well.    
  
"What--"  Electro stared at his own hands in confusion as the electricity crackling around them winked out.  
  
Realizing that he wasn't being pummeled by lightning anymore, Hulk roared, "HULK SMASH!" and careened into Electro.  When he had rendered Electro unconsious, he turned to the armored supervillain.  "HULK SMASH DOOM NEXT!"  
  
"I don't suppose there's any chance your electromagnetic pulse disabled Doom's armor as well?" Loki asked.  
  
"Of course not," Doom scoffed.  "I incorporated a defense against that into my armor long ago."  
  
"Really?  Maybe you could give me the specs for that," Tony groused as his own armor came back online.  
  
Hulk had reached Doctor Doom, and the two were grappling.  Tony could hear cables creaking and electronic servomotors whirring as Doom strained against the green Avenger's monstrous strength.  One of the suit's cameras zoomed in on a panel that was folding away from Doom's upper left arm, revealing something that looked like a needle.  _Poison_ , was Tony's first thought, and he lifted his own arm to fire a repulsor blast.  The hidden compartment in Doom's arm was blasted apart, and Doom lost his grip on Hulk.  He was far from disabled, however, and a blue shimmer around his whole body suggested that something else was afoot.    
  
What that was quickly became apparent when Hulk slammed Doom with what should have been a devastating haymaker.  But as soon as his fist made contact, electricity shuddered over his body, and he howled.  "MORE LIGHTNING?  ONLY THOR ALLOWED TO DO THAT!"  
  
"Oh lovely, a protective field," Loki said with his trademark sarcasm.  Heedless of the electrical field, Loki reached out a hand and gripped the Latverian monarch's shoulder.  Frost spread out from the point of contact, covering the armor in a seemingly delicate tracery of ice.  
  
"Loki!"  Tony saw the electricity rippling over Loki's skin and arcing between the metal plates on his armor, but the Asgardian only gritted his teeth.    
  
Sparks flew from the joints of Doom's armor--not from the protective shield this time, but from electronics that were failing under Loki's onslaught.  Doom shuddered, and his knees buckled.  Finally, he fell insensate to the ground.  As he hit the stone floor of the plaza, his armor shattered, revealing a mass of wires and circuit boards.  
  
"A Doombot," Steve said.  
  
"NOT REAL DOOM?"  
  
"No, big guy, not real Doom."  
  
The group now turned to the gleaming dome.  Now that they weren't being bombarded with lasers and lightning, they could see that there was a square hole cut into the stone beneath it.  Approaching more closely, they saw that the hole was the top of a stairway leading underground.  Like the dome, the stairs seemed to be solid gold.    
  
"JARVIS, please take a picture of this to show Pepper next time she comments on my 'excessive' collection of sports cars."  
  
"Let's be careful," Steve cautioned.  "We don't know what other protections Pan might have put in place."  
  
The stairs descended into a blessedly cool cavern that was paved floor to ceiling in yet more gold.  The place was vast, yet there only seemed to be one thing in it: a pedestal on which rested an object that, while not made of gold, was still yellow.  It resembled a fist-sized topaz, with expertly cut facets that reflected the glowing ball of light Loki had conjured to throw rainbow reflections over the walls.  
  
"That must be it," he breathed, "the Reality Gem."  
  
Tony took a few steps forward as data cataloguing the Gem scrolled across his display.  
  
 **"Who goes there?"** asked a voice.  It came from all around them, calm and assured.  Tony couldn't have said whether it was a man's voice or a woman's.  
  
"We are the Avengers, protectors of Earth," Steve offered.  "Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, The Hulk, and Iron Man."  
  
Loki coughed.  
  
"...And Loki, Prince of Asgard."  
  
 **"Which of you seeks the Stone of Possibilities?"**  
  
A flurry of glances and gestures passed between the Avengers.  Finally, Tony stepped forward.  "I do.  Uh, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, a.k.a. genius billionaire playboy philanthropist."  
  
"You probably could have done without the 'playboy' part," Clint stage-whispered.  
  
"Yeah, because trying to hide stuff from _Pan_ sounds like a totally great idea," Tony stage-whispered back.  
  
 **"I am not Pan, only an appointed guardian,"** the voice thundered.  **"The Stone of Possibilities could bring great destruction in the hands of an evil holder, and great tragedy in the hands of a well-meaning but foolish one.  Why should you be allowed to take it from this place?"**  
  
The most obvious answer, of course, was that they needed it to save the universe from being destroyed.  But if the Reality Gem was truly as powerful as Bruce's research claimed, it could bring about that very end in the wrong hands.  From the point of view of the voice, letting the wrong person take the Gem was no better than withholding it from all, even with the fate of the Nine Realms at stake.  
  
Nor would his host of good qualities--his brilliance, his strength, his charm--suffice to convince the guardian.  On the contrary, the voice might consider someone with imagination and willpower more dangerous, because they could accomplish bigger things with the Gem's power.  What it wanted to know about was his character.  Which, if he was going to be honest with himself, had kind of sucked for most of his life.  
  
Then the answer hit him, and Tony Stark smiled.  "Because of them," he said.  
  
 **"Explain."**  
  
"You talked about two kinds of people who could do great harm with this Gem: the evil and the well-meaning but foolish.  Well, I've done a whole lot of well-meaning but foolish shit in my life--excuse my French--and I suppose no one can guarantee that they'll never be tempted to evil.  But that's where my friends here come in.  You see that guy over there, the one in the gaudy, unreasonably tight red-white-and-blue outfit?  He's my conscience.  So's Thor, who's not here because he died, which is part of the reason we need the Gem in the first place.  And the big green guy, and the redhead, and the guy with the arrows who looks pissed because there's nothing in here to shoot with them?  They're the ones who'll kick my ass from here to Tijuana if I ever go berserk or something.  Pepper falls into both categories, I guess."  
  
The other Avengers looked touched to hear what they meant to him, except for Steve, who Tony guessed was annoyed about the "unreasonably tight" comment.  And Loki, whose eyes were starting to narrow.  
  
"Ah, you thought I left you out, didn't you?" Tony asked.  "Haven't you ever heard the Midgardian saying, 'Save the best for last'?"  He turned back to the Gem, since that seemed as likely a place as any to direct his argument to the voice.  "I've also got Loki, who makes me remember that there are people who would still want me even if I didn't have a private jet and twelve cars and a couple of mansions.  He makes me remember that I don't _need_ all that to be valued or, uh, you know, loved.  Yeah, I'm broken.  So's he.  But maybe when two broken people come together, they can make each other whole.  And someone who's whole doesn't need to try and put themselves back together by turning everything they touch into gold or whatever.  So...yeah.  That's it.  That's all I got.  Good enough for you?"  
  
There was a long pause, so long that Tony started to strategize for the possibility that they'd have to take the Gem by force.  But then the voice spoke again.  
  
 **"Yes, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, a.k.a. genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.  It is good enough."**  
  
"Uh, well, okay then."  Tony walked up to the pedestal and reached out for the Gem.  Staring into its depths, he thought he could see scenes playing themselves out, as if its facets were a set of mirrors placed to endlessly reflect each other.  Some of the scenes were nearly indistinguishable from reality, while others were like funhouse mirrors that showed their subjects hideously distorted.  He followed chains of possibilities that split off from each other like branches on a great tree, searching for the ones where Thor laughed and swung his hammer, and the Nine Realms endured for a million million years.  
  
"My friends?  How did we get here?"  
  
Tony whirled at the sound of a familiar voice.  "Thor!"  
  
"THOR BACK!"  Thor's eyes widened as Hulk tackled him in a bear hug.  
  
To Tony's surprise, Loki wasn't rushing to embrace Thor with the others.  "Something wrong?"  
  
Loki smiled, not the sharp smile that Tony was used to, but one that was almost...warm.  "No.  Nothing is wrong at all."

* * *

  
  
  
The "welcome home" feast for Thor was as joyous as his funeral feast had been sorrowful.  Sif and the Warriors Three related the exact same tales of valor they had at the funeral, but in a significantly cheerier tone.  An endless parade of Asgardians approached Thor to embrace him, clap him on the shoulder, or insist that he share a horn of mead with them.  Odin had even, through gritted teeth, thanked the mortals for returning his son and saving the Nine Realms from certain destruction.  
  
After a few hours, everyone there was at least three sheets to the wind, so Loki found it even easier than it otherwise would have been to slip out unnoticed.  He walked out to the terrace where Bruce had told Tony that there might be a way to undo Ragnarok, down a set of stone steps, and to the shore where Frigga and Thor had been given their final (or in Thor's case, "final") sendoffs.  Odin stood at the edge of the dark water, staring out at the spiral of the Milky Way.    
  
Odin turned, and as he did, the glamour fell away from him, leaving Loki staring into the eyes of his double, a sloughed-off bit of power given form and mind.  They looked back up to the palace, where Thor was joining Fandral in yet another drinking song.  Where Tony Stark, Keeper of the Reality Gem, sat.  
  
As one, they smiled.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ...So, when you guys said "Guidelines: 1500-5000 words," you totally meant "10000 words" right? ...Right?
> 
> This ended up being a lot longer than I expected when I first started writing; the Avengers just kind of ran away with me. But I hope you like it! I'm much more familiar with the movie-verse than the comics-verse, so I recognize that not everything here is going to be canon-compliant with regard to the comics. However, I tried to include a few references to characters/powers/events from the comics (for example, all three of the villains in the climactic fight scene are from the comics, as is Tony's use of the suit to produce an EMP).
> 
> There are also a couple of Norse mythology references here: Thor taking nine steps before collapsing after fighting Jormungandr, and the reference to Bragi (a god of poetry whose wife was Idunn). And of course the eight-legged horse.


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